Of course not everything comes off, but it's astonishing how much does. One of the hardest tones to hit in film is sweet, yet Stardust nails it better than anything since Splash. This is a film with a lot of very good smiling in it, and it doesn't take long for infection to take hold. The cast are phenomenal; Charlie Cox is a revelation, Michelle Pfeiffer hams her socks off as Evil Michelle Pfeiffer, and de Niro is preposterously unforgettable, while Claire Danes feels uncomfortably cast in her early scenes but by sheer persistence makes a pretty unplayable character beguilingly her own, and by the end she genuinely does light up the screen. It's been particularly gratifying to see such a risky prospect do strong business at home, since the book was a very British love-letter to Lud-in-the-Mist and The King of Elfland's Daughter; and though the film has softened and brightened the notes of melancholy in the mix, it still feels like a story told by people who genuinely love the traditions of classic literary fantasy. It's only when you see it done that you realise you've never seen anything like it attempted before.
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Certainly it's a much less happy landing for The Dark is Rising, latest in Walden Media's screen versions of cherished juvenile fantasy evergreens, and first in a prospective series it's difficult to see ever coming to sequel, despite the careful retention of the novel's major link to its own series climax. Unlike the same company's reverently faithful Narnia and Bridge to Terabithia, Susan Cooper's novel has been brutally reconfigured for the US mass market in ways that can hardly fail to horrify its actual readers: young Will Stanton is upcast from 11 to 14 (no! no!! WRONG!!!) and horribly recast as an American in heritage England, with inappropriate hots for the evil Maggie Barnes, and (probably the worst of the many worst things about this wretched transformation) saddled with a hideous dysfunctional family headed by a failed male whose abandoned life's work is a bizarrely-conceived thesis on the physics of good and evil. (In contrast, not the least delightful thing about Stardust is that the father-son business is handled in such a resolutely British way.)
Cooper wrote the books after her move to the US, so it's possible to defend the recasting with the argument that the novels are themselves, on one of their levels, an evocation of the traditions and landscape of pagan England as seen from the wrong side of the Atlantic. But it's hard to forgive the systematic abandonment of so many of the book's and the series’ core values in a woeful attempt to pander to a mass audience who, in the event, stayed away in their multitude. Some of the novel's powerful sense of landscape, mood, imagery, and myth survives, but it's unfortunate that just about the one element of the plot treated with respect is the crudely mechanical coupon-collecting quest that was a major weakness of the series, and this volume especially, even in its day. For today's audiences, it feels for all the world like a rather dull computer game. Do you want to save changes before you exit? Nope.
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That last choice comes from a key linking scene in The Nines, the directorial debut of Tim Burton's regular writer John August, who also scripted the undeservedly underloved Charlie's Angels and its deservedly unloved sequel, as well as maintaining one of the best professional blogs in the industry. Essentially yet another unacknowledged Ubik adaptation, The Nines is a puzzle-film structured as three shorts in which Ryan Reynolds’ character plays in turn an actor, a TV writer, and a game designer whose universes interlock as each in turn starts to manifest unnerving signs of unreality and conspiracy. A checklist of possible twists is dutifully recited and rejected: “This is all a dream ... I'm in a coma ... I'm dead,” plus another red herring which turns out to be pretty much true. It's a succinct low-budget composite of Vanilla Sky, eXistenZ, The Number 23, and Stranger than Fiction which nevertheless avoids sharing the actual twist of any of these, though lovers of E.R. Eddison's A Fish Dinner in Memison will figure it out soon enough.
Drawing both on August's experience as writer of movies and on his four-month addiction to World of Warcraft, it's an elegantly constructed if faintly scary writer's fantasy of what happens when the solipsistic and frankly schizoid Hollywood doctrine of the hero is extrapolated to its limits and melded with the still queasier image of the writer as cosmic creator. But it does leave you wondering whether even the most thoughtful and humane of these guys actually read anything at all apart from screenplays—particularly evident in the on-screen reduction of Candide to its famous catchphrase, with disconcerting indifference to what it means in the novel itself. Ironically, one of the hazards of hyphenate auteurial omnipotence is that small flaws in the creation become great tearing holes in the texture of plausibility: thus the attempted Latin phrase for ‘oblivion approaches', an unfortunately recurring motif in text and dialogue alike, has a nonsensical single-letter typo which has duly been transferred to its written form and its various supposedly authoritative spoken versions from the characters. We also glimpse a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Veritas Lux Me', though it's just possible that one's meant to be a clever joke. It's hard to tell.
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The Invasion is a similarly self-conscious avatar of a multiply-told story, and the first incarnation of Jack Finney's novel to drop ‘Body Snatchers’ entirely. This, it lamentably turns out, is because this latest generation of body snatchers don't actually snatch bodies at all, but merely infect them with a space endospore that takes over your original body—thus replacing the pod-grown duplicates, evidently felt a bit of a period embarrassment, with a tedious modernising homage to I Am Legend and its various credited and uncredited film versions. But what this of course misses is the vital driving force behind the plot: that the replacement of humans by alien impostors is irreversible, and that once they take you over in your sleep then the real you is gone, forever. When, at the end I'm not really ruining by telling you this, our heroes come up with a cure for the virus and vaccinate those mothers off the face of our planet, all the body-snatched loved ones who haven't been rashly bludgeoned to death can just come back to life and forget all about their brief stint doing absurd vehicle stunts and mowing down any dissidents who still insist on running out into traffic and banging on car windows and yelling “Help me! They're coming! We've got to warn people!” Nicole Kidman of all people ought to have known better, because they did exactly the same neutering job on her remake of The Stepford Wives, and look what that did for her burgeoning reputation as the Box-Office Kidman of Death. There's some interesting stuff about how leaving your kid with his dad will turn him into a stranger, but I liked the old paranoia best. At least you knew they were really coming to get you.
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Still, in a busy season for new strains of the Omega virus, it's at least heartening to report that the weaponised variant in Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror has no ambitions whatever beyond turning the world into gross-out zombie killers with ‘chronic herpetic lesions’ that go zit-pop when they're not being gorily shot up by her out of Charmed with an automatic for a leg and little Freddy Rodriguez trying to talk in a frightfully deep voice. Originally part of the unlucky Rodriguez-Tarantino Grindhouse project, it pays its own adoring tribute to a golden era of exploitation cinema its director surely can't be old enough to have lived through, and probably stands better on its own iconic feet than it would as part of an ensemble. The Machete trailer is a welcome survivor from the original double-feature package, but at the end of the actual film you've had such a saturate experience that you can see exactly why nobody would want to sit through Death Proof directly after. The dialogue is its own best description: “Looks like a no-brainer.” “What does that mean?” “No brains. Scraped clean out of her skull.” We've all seen films like that, though those who remember seeing them on the big screen are a dwindling band of survivors, and have the scars to show.
Copyright © 2007 Nick Lowe
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[Back to Table of Contents]
LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's Regular Review of DVD Releases
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The re-release of Hollow Man (2000) reinstates about two minutes of extra footage—in particular, the rape of the mad scientist's neighbour (Rhona Mitra)—considered unacceptably violent by studio executives only a few years ago. The film's outstanding 3d animated effects present bodily transfiguration; a visibility fadeout slowly peeling away layers of anatomy down to living bones, in one vividly designed and perfectly executed sequence, doing for science fiction's invisible man what American Werewolf In London did for the supernatural wolf-man. Paul Verhoeven's visceral thriller lacks narrative surprises as obsessed researcher (Kevin Bacon) turns psycho, but its clinical spectacle of quantum phase-shift makeovers remains fascinating to watch. Christian Slater tackles the central role (named Griffin, like Wells’ original Invisible Man) for Claudio Faeh's rather nondescript sequel Hollow Man II (2006), which concerns an undetectable hitman stalking a female biologist. She confides in a police detective, and together they uncover secret government plans to create a veritable army of such homicidal ‘ghost’ troops. The finale boasts the visual effects’ oddity of a showdown fight between two invisible soldiers. If you're a Wells’ farrago completist, it's worth ... um, seeing.
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As personal stealth tech fills military requirements for the ultimate spy or assassin in films about invisibility, other films exploring the notion of tactical invulnerability via regeneration of flesh tend to deliver exceptionally high measures of gore and action. The latest configuration of this ‘human experiments’ scenario, David Mitchell's quite darkly humorous UKM: Ultimate Killing Machine (2006), uneasily combines the SF horror of Universal Soldier (1992), with Police Academy style farce. Decadently amoral scientists surgically transform a mixed and misfit group of US army rejects into enraged and horny super-soldiers. Indie pictures often tackle stuff mainstream cinema steers away from, and here the links between sex and violence are explicitly stated, despite lacking Cronenberg standard levels of discourse or intercourse. UKM panders to the demands and expectations of teen viewers, offering unsophisticated—not infantile—fun, and cheesy antics (Michael Madsen routinely chews the scenery), but nothing more.
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With the lazily amusing sci-fi comedy of Mammoth (2005), and the compelling Iron Age sacrificial gore of Minotaur (2005), already rampaging across our home screens, Manticore (2005), adds large-scale adventure to the on-going cycle of monster B-movies. Directed by Tripp Reed, this Sci-Fi Channel mission features Robert Beltran (Star Trek Voyager) and Heather Donahue (Blair Witch Project) leading a US army squad in Iraq, where they find at least one ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in the shape of a mythical Babylonian creature, an indestructible winged lion with a scorpion tail. Borrowing from Black Hawk Down, and mimicking Aliens (a failed helicopter rescue mirrors that film's drop-ship crash), this watchable action thriller has some likeable characters, but it's letdown by uninspired or haphazard plotting, atrocious dialogue, and too much cheaply produced CGI work. As a result of those shoddy visual effects, the bloodthirsty beastie is never a credible menace, even when it's stalking troops in night shadows. Such conspicuous fakery is inexcusable when traditional stop-motion effects can look more impressive than this.
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Following the multi cliffhanger finale of season five (all main characters lost, at risk, or left in mortal danger), season six of Smallville gets off to a relatively dismal start with Lois Lane and Martha Kent's painlessly survived arctic plane-crash, and Clark Kent's effortless escape from the Phantom Zone, while supporting players are saved—just like that!—from whatever dire threats were faced in Kansas town or Metropolis city, and the situation returns to ‘normal'. The TV scenario's reset button isn't merely pressed; it's stomped on hard. This enables a string of absurdly lucky reversals that would embarrass even the shameless by-their-bootstraps solutions practised by the re-makers of Battlestar Galactica. Most new episodes lapse into mutant freak-of-the-week weirdness styled as X-Files’ mystery menaces, wrapped to go with superhero sitcom or wedding soap gift tags, and there's much quip scripting and chin-wagging bathos (especially from Lana Lang, portrayed vacuously by Kristin Kreuk) to confirm that this usually clever 21st century revision of DC Comics’ familiar krypto-mythos is another favourite telefantasy series going into a swift decline. However, mid-season standout Justice reunites the un-costumed Superboy with fellow do-gooders Green Arrow, Aqua Man, Cyborg, and Impulse (the Flash in all but name), for some anti-Luthor action and wry comicbook fun despite those self-reverential slow-mo walking tall sequences that are needlessly portentous and awfully clichéd. If producers plan to unleash a more generous Justice League of America—'the early days’ story-arc, this lacklustre show will require a sizable budget increase, if only for its usually low-key special effects.
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Heroes runs wild over ‘super-team’ territories where Smallville tiptoes gracelessly. Created by Tim Kring, this is basically Unbreakable (2000) meets the X-Men trilogy (2000-6), with a flying politician (Adrian Pasdar), a precognitive artist, a teleporting Japanese comic-book geek, a schizoid stripper (Ali Larter, Final Destination) with a homicidal alter-ego, a mind-reading policeman (Greg Grunberg, Alias), an ex-convict who can walk through walls, a radioactive man, a shape-shifter, and an indestructible Buffy-esque cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere), whose father (Jack Coleman) works for a covert agency and is partnered with a sinister Haitian psychic. An Indian geneticist investigates predestined connections between various evolutionary special people, while FBI detectives hunt a super-powered serial killer, and the future of New York hangs in the balance. With conflicted protagonists facing the challenge of emergent conditions that threaten to overwhelm moral codes and smash fragile psyches, this series wryly lampoons and yet winningly represents the Slan fanboy pulp-SF dream of belonging to a peculiar elite group that share terrifying and momentous secrets, or co-operate to save an unsuspecting world from disaster, and protect innocents from malevolent forces. As mystery drama, it's certainly more genuinely intriguing than J.J. Abrams’ overly manipulative and pointlessly convoluted, Lost (2004-8), but its ‘international’ cast is a television network's blatant scrabble for the widest possible audience-demographic appeal, with too many key roles reinforcing social, ethnic, or gender stereotypes, exposing an unfortunate lack of creative imagination. There is little chance any of these ‘ordinary’ folk gifted with extraordinary abilities could ever become larger-than-life or inspirational figures, so the resulting entertainment values prove to be an unhealthy mix of cynicism and blundering pretension. Standard b&w flashbacks, with conspiratorial revelations, abound. The invisible hermit/guru (ex-Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston) might have made a difference but, tragically, he doesn't get enough screen time.
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Produced by Pedro Almodóvar, Acción Mutante (1993) offers cult sci-fi/comedy horror, Spanish style, directed by first-timer Álex de la Iglesia, later the maker of deliriously twisted road movie Perdita Durango (aka: Dance With The Devil, 1997), and weird western 800 Bullets (2002). This ultra-violent futuristic farce sees a gang of disabled terrorists gatecrash a society wedding, kidnap and abuse the bride, and escape in their ramshackle spaceship. Despite physical/mental problems, alienation and genetic abnormalities, Mutant Action are hilariously determined to bring havoc and ugliness to blissfully arrogant lives of health Nazis, wealthy celebrities and the beautiful people, and seem intent on the destruction of everything that's popular and shiny, especially conformism and refinement. Fans of Peter Jackson's Bad Taste, Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and Caro & Jeunet's City Of Lost Children will be delighted with the explicit gore, fringe political ranting, comic-book apologia, Verhoeven-esque media satire, the impolite machinations of our antiheroes’ treacherous leader Ramón (Antonio Resines), and the sadistic inhab
itants of cheaply retro, surreal mining planet Axturiax, where the grungy freaks’ sabotaged spaceship crashes. Feminists, conservatives, or anyone of a nervous disposition, beware.
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As it's been keenly anticipated for so long, perhaps it's appropriate to declare Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982-2007) an instant-classic movie that was 25 years in the making, instead of this being simply a quarter-century anniversary DVD release. Whatever your views on the quick-profit commercial vs. painstakingly artistic nature of cinema, Ridley Scott's film is undeniably an influential, exhilarating, remarkable piece of work, boasting more fascinating SF visuals (sophisticated retro-futurism), great action scenes (including one in which the downbeat hero shoots a woman in the back!), and poetic noir dialogue than any other masterpiece in the genre canon. Long-time fans will doubtless rave about a comprehensive five-disc tin, and copious extras of the attaché-cased blu-ray collector's item. There are sequel novels (by K.W. Jeter), ‘making-of’ books and critical texts available, but it's the main film that counts, and this definitive version reveals what a slapdash marketing exercise the 1992 director's cut was. As ultimate DVDs go, this edition offers much more than just a re-mastered transfer with tweaked effects and repaired faults. Unlike many filmmaker-approved special editions, it's not a pretentious/vanity project either, as forthright pragmatist Scott was fully aware of its merits and mistakes to start with. Ironically, it challenges the notion of what SF (about ‘what it means to be human') represents in our hi-tech century, where actors become indistinguishable from 3d animation. Completed, not abandoned, Blade Runner is now ‘great Art’ to stand with Kubrick's Space Odyssey.
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #214 Page 17